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A new academic journal is being launched this week. The Journal of Participatory Medicine will move the field from anecdote to science, with articles on principles, methods and evidence-based outcomes.

Gary Schwitzer notes a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine that focused on how critical drug information from the FDA may fail to be included on the drug label or in relevant journal articles.

Participatory medicine is a model of medical care in which the active role of the patient is emphasized. Some patients not only take an active role, they push the boundaries of medicine and publish a case report describing their experience.

Have you ever wondered if patients given a placebo during a clinical trial experience side effects? It turns out they do. What’s more, a recent study examining the side effects reported by patients taking placebos in clinical trials to test migraine medications found that the placebo side effects are specific to the side effects that would be expected from the comparison drug.